1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to high voltage power supplies, and more particularly to a high voltage power supply comprised of a plurality of thin metal film batteries.
2. Discussion
Limited burst directed energy military systems are well known and have a high target kill success rate. The systems require a high voltage electrical source that drives the system in either a pulsed or continuous operation for short engagement times at high average powers, typically on the order of hundreds of kilowatts. Conventional energy storage and high voltage power supplies are of the type disclosed in research papers published and proceedings such as the IEEE Pulsed Power Conference or the IEEE Modulator Conference.
One disadvantage of the prior energy storage and high voltage power supply art is the size of the power supplies, especially when utilized with mobile systems of limited available platform energy. In such cases, energy must be stored in a multi-component medium, such as a homopolar generator, compulsator, flywheel, or capacitor, at comparatively low voltages, then converted to high voltage of appropriate volt-ampere-pulse duration characteristics. The separate components typically require ferrite materials for transformer cores, thick conductors to handle high input currents, and substantive separations to handle high output voltages.
A second disadvantage of the prior energy storage art is that for systems of reasonable size and weight, available energy storage density means engagement times are typically only 5-10 seconds.
Another disadvantage of the prior energy storage and high voltage power supply art is that to obtain compact high voltage power supplies, a series resonant inverter ("SRI") approach is used. However, high average power throughput using the SRI approach presents a design limitation on the switching frequency. Lower switching frequencies must be used for high average power throughput, meaning regulation of the volt-ampere values at the load is not sufficiently fast.
A further disadvantage of the prior energy storage and high voltage power supply art is that the SRI approach creates low frequency noise from the switches which propagates ubiquitously throughout the rest of the system, with attendant contamination and control problems.
Still another disadvantage of the prior energy storage and high voltage power supply art is the inherent control complexity of using several separate subsystem components which must be simultaneously monitored, regulated, timed, and controlled for both normal operation and fault response.
The prior art energy storage and high voltage power supplies also suffer from their comparative lower overall system energy efficiency. Each subsystem component has its own input-to-output conversion efficiency. These efficiencies are never 100%. Hence, each additional subsystem component removes usable energy, with attendant problems of heat production and thermal management.